


I shall die (but you will live to love and love again)

by orphan_account



Series: gift fics [3]
Category: DC Cinematic Universe, DCU, Wonder Woman (2017), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-11 17:07:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12939822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Growing up, Stephanie was told her features were too harsh, too sharp to be beautiful, so it only makes sense that disguised as a man her fellow soldiers would grin and call her "pretty boy."It's like her mother used to say: jealous people will always be happy to find fault with you.





	I shall die (but you will live to love and love again)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [youshallnotfinditso](https://archiveofourown.org/users/youshallnotfinditso/gifts).



> Title from Sara Teasdale's [Erinna](http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/400/pg400.html).
> 
> For my dear friend, on this, the anniversary of her birth.

It sounds stupid, even when she's just saying it to herself, but the only thing Stephanie ever really regrets about the whole mess was having to cut off her hair.

+

By the time she crashes her plane into the icy water, she's so goddamn bone deep tired that for a split second she considers just -- not struggling.

There's a part of her -- a larger part than Stephanie will admit, ever, even alone in the small hours of the night -- that didn't think she'd live this long, anyway. After her parents died, she drifted without purpose, and then the war happened and she thought: yes, yes I can do that, yes, I can help, _yes._

But Stephanie never really expected to survive the war, not in her heart of hearts. And she'd been alright with that, had made her peace with it, because the world without her parents in it was hard enough to face, but the world without the millions of souls they'd lost to this senseless violence might well be unbearable.

But she's lived this long, and she's got the scientist's damn notebook, and if living means she'll save a few more people, then blast it, she'll try to survive one more ridiculous mission.

+

Stephanie has always been good with fixing things, from Papa's phonograph to the engine in their ancient Oldsmobile Runabout.

She spent weeks fairly haunting the Palaces of Electricity and Transportation during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. (Although she took breaks to see the Airship Contest as well as to sneak into Henri Poincaré's keynote address on physics, which she'd mostly taught herself by secreting away books from her father's library.) Her parents' allowances for these quirks are the only reasons it's not a total shock when, the summer after her fifteenth birthday, Stephanie's papa teaches her how to drive.

It's Mama's idea, which is less surprising than it probably should be, given Mama's reputation as a perfect society matron, but Stephanie knows better. She wants someone to be able to drive in an emergency if Papa's traveling for business, but she doesn't want to hire a full time chauffeur. Mama's vision has been poor ever since she'd had that terrible fever a few years earlier, so she wouldn't be doing any driving.

Mr. Reynolds -- the ancient butler Mama had stolen from a particularly vexing English heiress when she was a young debutante, and who'd happily (or at least Stephanie thinks he's happy; Mr. Reynolds doesn't have much in the way of facial expressions) come along with Mama when Stephanie's parents married -- said in no uncertain terms that he wouldn't touch that infernal machine if his own life depended on it, begging your pardon, Mrs. Trevor.

Stephanie spends the summer of 1908 neglecting to wear her hat, freckling beneath the St. Louis County sunshine.

+

When Stephanie opens her eyes and the most beautiful woman she's ever seen is staring down at her, she decides that Heaven might not be so bad. Then her senses kick back in and she realizes she's in too much pain to be dead.

After that, things are happening too fast. The women are amazing, but they have bows and blades and the Germans have guns and there are bodies, too many bodies everywhere, everywhere.

She manages to save the woman who'd pulled her from the plane's wreckage, but there are too many lost. She's frogmarched to some sort of palace -- and really, where is this place? -- and restrained with a rope that's glowing in a frankly alarming way.

Their ruler, Queen Hippolyta, demands to know who Stephanie is and why she's come. The easy lie that's tripped off her tongue for years sticks in her throat for long moments as she's suffused with growing agony.

Stephanie isn't sure who's more shocked when she screams and pants and then confesses that she's a woman who's spent the last four years disguising herself as a man to help in the war effort. The Amazons stare at her for a long beat of silence before erupting into noise, all talking at once. Diana, standing beside her mother, is looking at Stephanie with frank admiration in her eyes. Stephanie wishes she wasn't so prone to blushing.

+

Stephanie's finally old enough to be left home alone without a chaperone in the summer of 1913, and her parents take a long dreampt of anniversary trip to New York. When Mama and Papa are three days overdue, she receives a telegram that they've both been killed in a railcar crash.

She spends a week refusing to leave the house. Mr. Reynolds stands tall and quietly furious, guarding the front door from visitors like a particularly pugnacious elderly bulldog.

Stephanie inherits a fortune so obscenely large it's all that society can do to give her the customary time in mourning black and gray before fellows start sniffing around in hopes of catching her eye and her pocketbook.

In the summer of 1914, Stephanie stops wearing her mourning purples and the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne is assassinated in Sarajevo. America remains neutral while Europe goes to war, and Stephanie lets word spread quietly about town that she's heading to London for the latter half of the season. It's heavily implied that she'll be looking to find a titled husband in want of a wealthy wife.

There's some dark muttering, both in regards to the loss of such a fortune to the area and about young Miss Trevor traveling with only her ancient butler as chaperone. But she's been a favorite of her set for years, and it’s generally acknowledged if not entirely accepted that Mr. Reynolds is both chaperone and a sort of surrogate uncle since her parents’ passing. Anyway, most folks don't blame her for wanting to get away from a place that holds so many memories and settle far from stark reminders of all she's lost.

If additional trunks full of men's attire in precisely Stephanie's size happen to appear amongst her belongings when the RMS Olympic, the once-gorgeous liner painted a dull grey and its portholes painstakingly covered over, arrives in Liverpool, well. None the wiser.

+

It takes long minutes of listening to the Amazons' chatter to realize that this island has been untouched by the war, and she immediately starts making her case for release so she can return to the fight. It seems the sort of argument that would sway a society of warrior women. A small voice in her head whispers she could stay here, safe and secure, surrounded by women of fearsome beauty and strength. Stephanie furiously quashes the voice and steadily meets the cold gaze of a queen.

It's not as if her life could get any stranger, at this point.

+

Stephanie settles Mr. Reynolds, impressively entering his eighth decade on earth, in a grand old place in Mayfair with all the finest creature comforts and a full-time nurse. If the dear old fellow sometimes seems confused about young Mr. Trevor's Christian name, the nurse understands full well how easily confused the poor dear can get. And everyone knows even the best butlers go a little funny after they've lived in the States that long, anyway.

Stephanie spends the winter of 1914 with the vehicular arm of the Quartermaster Corps. Every time she repairs an engine, she hears her father's booming laugh, sees her mother's sly smile, and she ducks her head down, works twice as hard.

+

Stephanie was wrong. Her life has gotten stranger.

The Amazons won't send a force with her, but they'll allow her provisions and a vessel, which is better than she hoped for. Not only this, but Princess Diana -- she of the huge brown eyes and sweet, naive speeches -- tries to sneak onto the boat as Stephanie makes her final preparations. Stephanie is still trying to talk Diana out of coming when the queen and a half dozen Amazons arrive at the docks. She catches only some of the conversation, but the weary, resigned look on the queen's face speaks volumes. A few minutes later, Diana has bid her mother, her people, and her home farewell.

Stephanie can only hope it goes better for Diana than it has for her.

+

Growing up, Stephanie was told her features were too harsh, too sharp to be beautiful, so it only makes sense that disguised as a man her fellow soldiers would grin and call her "pretty boy."

It's like her mother used to say: jealous people will always be happy to find fault with you.

In the service she cultivates a reputation for vanity in a way she'd studiously avoided her entire life. Stephanie was an effortless beauty, the type of fresh faced girl the society mamas adored and the fellows admired without getting handsy unless asked. Her motto might as well have been "polished, but without _obvious_ effort."

But Steve? Steve is just this side of a dandy, forever hanging his glass first thing when they make camp so he can inspect his reflection. It rankles, but if Steve is the kind of chap who wouldn't be caught dead with stubble, even three days into a barrage, it's less likely Stephanie's lack of beard will raise anyone's suspicions.

+

Diana is a truly perplexing mix of worldly and naive. She talks frankly of intercourse, between all mixes of genders and for both reproductive and recreational purposes. Stephanie wouldn't be at all surprised if the princess has far more familiarity with the pleasures of the human form. It takes all of her remaining willpower not to take Diana up on the implied offer of sharing more than body heat beneath their blankets and furs. And yet, upon their arrival in London, Diana gapes at the tall buildings, the men, Etta and the frankly pitiful excuse for a department store where they find Diana slightly more suitable clothing, the presence of  _children. A_ nd it would all be so incredibly charming if Stephanie wasn't in such a desperate hurry to pass on her intelligence. She feels only the barest twinge of guilt when she assures Diana that they'll go to the front as soon as she's passed on the notebook to her superiors.

Then there's the assassination attempt and Stephanie wonders if perhaps Diana's insistence on going to the front isn't such a terrible idea, after all.

+

Stephanie never actually intends to join Intelligence. It's just that the wrong -- or perhaps right -- people realized Private Trevor, the baby-faced Yank with the long fingered hands that work miracles on engines, can speak a baker's dozen languages, read in ten more, and has pretty enough manners to slip into just about any function that might be necessary.

Stephanie has always had a knack for languages, picking them up without ever quite meaning to start, and they were one of the more acceptable things for a young society lady to study, if she insists on studying something.

Stephanie picked up German from an ancient ex-Berliner she worked with in the Quartermaster Corps, back in the early days when the papers were still insisting they'd all be home by Christmas.

Professor Kaufman, before he too was picked up by Army Intelligence, taught Stephanie a dozen-odd accents and dialects in-between beating parts into submission and periodically swearing in Yiddish.

Stephanie, who's been taught the finest array of curse words available to an enterprising young person spending the better part of a year lurking about a World's Fair, maintains that Yiddish has all the best epithets.

+

As much as she adores her ragtag team, Stephanie understands why Diana is initially unimpressed with Charlie and Sameer. On the surface, they're deeply unimpressive, the sort of men she'd never have been allowed to speak to as a girl in St. Louis.

Charlie's the seventh son of a gentleman farmer: decently educated thanks to the kindness of wealthy relations, but penniless and prone to coarse language when not in the presence of ladies. And after mission after mission after mission gone wrong, he's fairly well dropped into the bottom of a bottle and has yet to work his way free, but Stephanie owes him her life several times over. She'd trust his eye and aim even if he'd emptied a dozen tankards.

Sameer would be an unsuitable acquaintance by color, alone, and an actor, of all things, would render him utterly inappropriate. For all that, he's a fine friend and a worthy ally for undercover work. She'd spent the first few weeks of their acquaintance worrying her disguise had slipped before realizing it was working all too well and that's why Sameer was flirting. He's the first and only compatriot she's told, and his assistance in keeping up appearances on assignment is invaluable.

She's not sure what it is about her body language that convinces Diana to trust Charlie and Sameer, but the princess's shoulders drop and her smile tilts from threatening to warm. It paints a pretty picture, though not as pretty as when Diana handily dispatches several burly gentlemen who try to rough them up.

Stephanie does so love it when a team comes together.

+

Stephanie adores Etta Candy from moment one. After a week, Stephanie fairly worships at her feet. But Etta doesn't know Stephanie: she knows newly-promoted Lieutenant Steve Trevor, American fop and cheeky pain in her arse. It takes almost a month before Etta really understands that Steve thinks she's the best thing ever to happen to military administration. After that, they’re thick as thieves.

When she thinks about it later, Stephanie realizes that gifting Etta stockings on her second day, while a kind gesture, probably gave the wrong impression.

+

She'd thought nothing could ever be as beautiful as Diana bounding fearlessly into No Man's Land, but seeing her head tilted towards the snow-filled sky, dark curls tumbling down her back, Stephanie's breath catches in her chest and lodges there, hot and solid as a glowing coal. When Diana meets her gaze, Stephanie has no choice but to offer her anything she wants.

First, Diana wants a dance beneath the stars. Second, she wants to take Stephanie to bed.

Stephanie happily obliges to the first, and to the second she is a willing pupil to Diana's assured tutelage. She has secondhand knowledge from her wider circle of acquaintances in St. Louis -- mainly members of the Potters and their various clingers-on, all with hearts dedicated to the poetry of Sappho -- and the wide assortment of men and women she's met throughout the war, but everything past kisses and fumbling hands in dark corners is a fresh experience.

Diana is, predictably and perfectly, kind and patient. Every press of her mouth and fingers to Stephanie's oh-so-willing flesh is a revelation, a previously unknown ecstasy, a brand that Stephanie wishes she could will into permanence on her freckled skin.

They lie in bed, limbs intermingled until Stephanie is unsure which are hers and which are Diana's. Stephanie dreams of a gentler world where she crowns her princess's head in flowers and adorns her long golden limbs with kisses and silks. She wakes with the rosy-fingered dawn creeping through the inn's shuttered windows and her heart, so unused to feeling anything but loss, aches oddly beneath her breast.

She thought she had known want and affection, but it is nothing to the wellspring of feeling that rises within her with each passing moment.

Stephanie's mother told her once, long ago, that love is the most beautiful and terrible thing in the world. She hadn't understood then, but she does now. For Stephanie has found her match, and her soul sings. For Stephanie has found her match, and they march toward their almost-certain deaths on the morrow.

As if Stephanie needed another assurance that the world is a cruel, unfair place.

+

They've never discussed it, but Chief knows that Steve is Stephanie. Or, he doesn't know that that's her name, but he knows she's a she and that she's not really a Steve.

The fifth time they arrange a meet, Stephanie arrives after she's been shot in the shoulder and is bleeding through three layers. Chief doesn't blink twice when he removes her shirt and sees the careful bindings over her breasts. He patches her up as she fades in and out of consciousness, and insists she take the tent when she feebly protests she can sleep out by the fire.

Chief cooks her breakfast before sending her on her way the next morning, the closest thing she's ever seen to a smile on his face as she fumbles through thanking him for his assistance.

Stephanie finds a small stack of Kimberly-Clark's wood pulp bandages tucked into her bag with the contraband she'd paid for. Her courses start two days later, before she'd have had a chance to find any on her own, and she's so goddamn grateful she could cry. From then on, Chief slips her a stack every time he sees her, no charge. When she asks if he can get her replacement hair scissors, he does and gives Stephanie her next trim himself. It takes all of her not inconsiderable willpower to refrain from hugging him.

Six months after they meet, Chief offers to teach her Blackfoot: three different dialects.

Stephanie falls in love with him, just a little bit, which is how she realizes they're friends.

+

Her eyes are stinging with smoke and dust and the burn of unshed tears. She looks back into the hold, explosives stacked in tidy rows, and draws her sidearm with a motion so practiced it's easy as breathing. The plane climbs higher, higher into the sky and a quick glance towards the ground shows her friends wrecking merry havoc on the base, God love 'em. They always get the job done.

Stephanie laughs, and breathes, heavy even gulps of gritty, thinning air. She closes her eyes and adjusts her grip, and grins, wide and sharp, as she flies higher, higher, higher.

Her hand is steady as she rests her finger on the trigger. Stephanie never thought she'd live this long, anyway. Ready, aim --

+

Time. It's the first time since her parents died that Stephanie longs for more of it. But there's a plane that needs flying and a world that needs saving and she knows which of those things she's qualified to handle.

She can't say goodbye, not properly, tries to fumble her way through, hand on Diana's cheek as her dark brows furrow. Stephanie has no idea if she can truly hear her at all, but she has to say it anyway, has to tell her --

Well. She wishes they had more time, is all.

+

\-- fire.


End file.
